The development of photographic sensitive surfaces (black and white, color, negatives, slides etc) is made in machines which carryout operations corresponding to a particular process which requires placing the photographic surface into contact with different liquid chemical products and water.
The problem of development therefore is concerned with chemical factors and mechanical factors.
Solutions to this problem have hertofore been pursued in which the chemical factors have been considered as constant which implies that the photographic surfaces are of a single type. Consequently, it is simple to realize automatic machines which effect repetitive and identical operations.
The existing machines are complex, cumbersome and costly because they are generally destined for professional laboratories.
They comprise large separate reservoirs for each chemical in a transfer mechanism on which can be affixed a more or less great quantity of photographic surfaces and which transport these photographic surfaces from one reservoir to another in a fixed order for a predetermined time in each reservoir.
Thus, a laboratory has a machine for the development of negatives in black and white, another machine for slides in black and white, another machine for negatives in color, another machine for slides in color, etc.
Certain machines are more or less multi-functional and have an adaptable operation. They are controlled either by hand, or by a program (punch card, magnetic band and the like) to adapt their operation to the type of photographic surface to be treated.
However, in all cases, these machines have great capacity (several hundreds of films per hour) and it is not feasible to employ one machine for only one or two films.
However, there are a number of cases where a user only needs to develop a small number of films, such as:
Professional fashion or news photographers whose production is always small but extremely urgent. PA1 Doctors or surgeons whose treatment is a function of photographic results (not to be confused with X-rays whose development is immediate). PA1 Companies working for national defense and who cannot disclose their work to the general public for secrecy reasons. PA1 Advertising agencies, magazines, newspapers which have need for special work (unusual decorative effects) and under urgent conditions. PA1 Amateurs for whom the time of development is an impediment to the taking of photographs. PA1 For example, an American tourist who gives his pictures to be developed in Paris will only have his prints several days later. If he returns to the United States a month later after having subsequently visited Italy he could only have his photos upon his return to the United States, assuming he wishes to avoid the risk of loss by having them sent to one or more hotels that he would be at during this trip. PA1 The machine is of robot type and it responds to programmed orders provided on the package. But this package is linear and can only serve for the development of a single type because: PA1 the cells have a spacing variable depending on the duration of treatment of each product, PA1 the number of cells is variable according to each treatment, PA1 the length of each program package can reach an unacceptable value, PA1 for each treatment it is necessary to provide a package of different length and different cell configuration and, therefore to dispose as many molds and filling machines as there are different treatments, the package must be displaced linearly in very precise guides with a complex drive mechanism which leads to high price or insufficient reliability. PA1 The present invention seeks to provide a package which is applicable to a multi-functional automated machine. The machine can effect all the necessary operations for developing all types of photographic surfaces. The machine follows a fixed program on the package which contains the products desired for one given type of photographic surface, therefore a single universal machine is operative with packages adapted to each type at development desired. PA1 For development of colored slides, it is necessary to have six chemical products. One could then provide a first series of six cells for one treatment and a second series of six other cells for a second treatment; for development of black and white negatives, three chemical products are necessary and therefore three cells are required. Each package would then be filled to carry out development of four negatives. PA1 For a special treatment (which now exists or which could be invented in the years to come) let us assume that eight chemical products would be necessary and therefore eight cells are required. Then each package could only serve for a single use and eight cells would be filled and four would be empty and non-utilized.
For these people there only exist non-automatic machines which it is necessary to supervise minute by minute and under the conditions known to a skilled workman. By way of example, reference can be made to machines which do not prepare chemical products. It is necessary therefore to successively introduce six or seven different products there that one prepares manually in receivers and certain of which must be at an extremely precise temperature (.+-. about 1/10.degree. centigrade). All this is so complicated that ultimately these machines are operated by specialists who are employed by the owner and one is therefore faced with the preceeding problems viz., waiting time, possibility of loss, deficiency of treatment, price etc.
In sum, the technical problem is to provide apparatus by which small numbers of photographically sensitive surfaces of all possible types can be developed by means of a single automatic machine which can be utilized by anybody, even one without any special comptency.
Up to the present there only exists a single such machine. It is described in Applicant's U.S. Pat. No. 3,550,520. This machine has a number of deficiencies however.